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Uber charges California couple $30K for one ride

  • Adams took Uber to airport in Costa Rica where she would fly to Guatemala
  • Ordonez Jr. saw the charge on his phone, contacted Adams about it
  • The couple was stranded in Guatemala with little to no funds

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LOS ANGELES (NewsNation) — A California couple was on vacation in Central America when Uber accidentally charged their joint bank account thousands of dollars for just one ride.

It all started when Adams was in Costa Rica and took an Uber to the airport so she could fly to Guatemala to meet her husband.

Douglas Ordonez Jr. and Dominique Adams were planning to celebrate their five-year wedding anniversary in Guatemala when they received an alert that Uber charged them $30,000 in American currency for a ride instead of 30,000 Costa Rican colones, which equals about $55 in U.S. currency.

The two were planning to renew their wedding vows during an idyllic getaway, but instead were left without money in a foreign country.

“I took an Uber, everything was fine, I didn’t think twice about it,” Adams told NewsNation affiliate KTLA in an interview.

Adams said as soon as she got inside the airport in Costa Rica, her husband called her saying his credit card was declined.

“He checked our bank account and saw the almost $30,000 charge, and we both were like ‘What the hell? What do we even do?’” she said.

With no money, the couple had to postpone their vow renewal.

“The bank was blaming Uber, and Uber was blaming the bank,” Adams said.

“I was upset and confused because I couldn’t believe my financial institution would allow a charge of that magnitude without letting me know,” Ordonez Jr. said. “I wasn’t sure if somebody stole our information.”

Adams said it took about four days until they were able to get their money back. However, during those four days, the two were stuck in Guatemala with no access to any of their funds.

The couple said they stayed at an Airbnb, and luckily, Ordonez Jr. had taken out some cash before he left Los Angeles. Some of the experiences were already booked before they arrived, too, which gave them a little bit of leeway.

“We had to improvise every day,” he said. “We did have to push back our vow renewal for two days just to clear our mind and make sure everything back home was situated.”

However, to this day, Uber hasn’t contacted them.

“Before this was resolved they marked this case as resolved in their app. They were very negligent,” Adams said.

In a statement to KTLA, an Uber spokesman said, “At Uber, we take every report seriously. As soon as we received the user’s report, our support team promptly addressed the issue and released the authorization hold mistakenly applied due to a bank error in Dollars and not in Colones. However, the time it takes for the refund to be processed depends on each bank’s policies.”

At the time of publication, Altura Credit Union hadn’t responded to KTLA’s request for comment.

When asked if she had any advice for international travelers, Adams said, “Yes, use a credit card rather than a debit card. I should’ve taken my own advice.”

The couple says they don’t plan on using Uber ever again.

NewsNation affiliate KTLA contributed to this report.

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